[lugm.org] Fwd: [FTF-Legal] Mildly GPL related case in Supreme Court of Mauritius

Tue Jun 28 15:00:04 UTC 2011

Hi,

>From what I understand, the defendant was contracted to work on some
code for Linux Solutions. The defendant decided to publish the code
without the consent of the employer.

If that's accurate, the defendant was doing a "work for hire" and  was
in the wrong to release the code.

It does not seem to be a case of a customer buying a PABX product from
Linux Solutions and then changing/redistributing GPL code

On Tue, Jun 28, 2011 at 18:46, Aadil Noorkhan <aadil at lavabit.com> wrote:
> Hello,
>
> I agree with Ronny: we are not lawyers and not expert in FOSS licences.  But
> we should have a better understanding of those licences than most people and
> should point it to the law, while remaining neutral.
>
> Cheers,
> Aadil.
>
> On 6/28/2011 6:40 PM, Ronny R. wrote:
>>
>> we can also make the applicant aware that we are keen to help the
>> defendant
>>
>> On Tue, Jun 28, 2011 at 6:39 PM, Ronny R.<redoverlord at gmail.com>  wrote:
>>>
>>> hello
>>>
>>> my opinion is that
>>> 1. we are not lawyers
>>> 2. sending a letter to the court is of no use as we dont have any locus
>>> standi
>>> 3. we better advise defendant to counter affidavit the one of the
>>> applicant and then we can be of some help
>>> but please note that in no case can we act as expert og the GPL laws,
>>> we can provide the text and let the lawyers of the defendant analyse
>>> and show to the court.
>>>
>>> Cheers
>>>
>>> Ronny
>>>
>>> On Tue, Jun 28, 2011 at 6:26 PM, Aadil Noorkhan<aadil at lavabit.com>
>>>  wrote:
>>>>
>>>> Hello,
>>>>
>>>> The fraudulent statements in the affidavit are disturbing indeed.
>>>>
>>>> We should inform the Supreme Court and both parties of the misleading
>>>> statements via email and a letter, backed by solid evidence and signed
>>>> by
>>>> the LUGM managing committee, or simply the president.
>>>>
>>>> If no response is received then we sent the letter to the press.
>>>>
>>>> Cheers,
>>>> Aadil.
>>>>
>>>> On 6/28/2011 5:24 PM, Avinash Meetoo wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>> Dear all,
>>>>>
>>>>> I have just received this email from Philip Hands in the UK referring
>>>>> to
>>>>> a case currently in the Supreme Court of Mauritius. It would seem that
>>>>> the two parties involved have different opinions on what an open source
>>>>> license really is, more specifically the GPL. Someone called Harald
>>>>> Welte has written a post on his blog on this matter.
>>>>>
>>>>> A few months ago, someone called me at work asking me about what the
>>>>> GPL
>>>>> really means but I am not sure whether he is one of the parties
>>>>> concerned.
>>>>>
>>>>> What do you think?
>>>>>
>>>>> Avinash
>>>>>
>>>>> ---
>>>>> From: *Philip Hands*<phil at hands.com<mailto:phil at hands.com>>
>>>>> Date: Tue, Jun 28, 2011 at 4:01 PM
>>>>> Subject: [FTF-Legal] Mildly GPL related case in Supreme Court of
>>>>> Mauritius
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> Hi Avinash,
>>>>>
>>>>> I'm forwarding this to your mailing list in the hope that someone on
>>>>> the list knows how to inform your Supreme Court properly.  It wasn't
>>>>> clear to me if that was a subscriber-only list though, so I'm also
>>>>> sending it to you direct, as you appear to to be the founder of the
>>>>> LUG. I hope that's OK.
>>>>>
>>>>> Here is the main point from the attached mail:
>>>>>
>>>>> http://laforge.gnumonks.org/weblog/2011/06/27/
>>>>>
>>>>> in which you can see that someone from http://www.linuxsolutions.mu/
>>>>> seem to be claiming (under oath) that there is no difference between
>>>>> GPL
>>>>> licensed software, and Public Domain.
>>>>>
>>>>> I'm sure that any feedback that you have would be welcome, either on
>>>>> the
>>>>> ftf-legal-bounces at fsfeurope.org<mailto:ftf-legal-bounces at fsfeurope.org>
>>>>> mailing list, or perhaps if you get in
>>>>> touch with Harald Welte<laforge at gnumonks.org
>>>>> <mailto:laforge at gnumonks.org>>, and he can then update
>>>>> his blog (of course, you're welcome to reply to me as well).
>>>>>
>>>>> Cheers, Phil.
>>>>>
>>>>> P.S. FYI I'm a long-time Debian Developer, and have hosted the Debian
>>>>> UK
>>>>> mirror (ftp.uk.debian.org<http://ftp.uk.debian.org>) since the mid 90's
>>>>> -- and I make occasional
>>>>> contributions to the Free Software Foundation Europe mailing list where
>>>>> this issue came up.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
>>>>> From: Harald Welte<laforge at gnumonks.org<mailto:laforge at gnumonks.org>>
>>>>> To: ftf-legal at fsfeurope.org<mailto:ftf-legal at fsfeurope.org>
>>>>> Date: Tue, 28 Jun 2011 11:58:53 +0200
>>>>> Subject: [FTF-Legal] Mildly GPL related case in Supreme Court of
>>>>> Mauritius
>>>>> Hi,
>>>>>
>>>>> since I don't expect everyone here is following my blog, I would like
>>>>> to
>>>>> post a small notice here:
>>>>> http://laforge.gnumonks.org/weblog/2011/06/27/
>>>>>
>>>>> The case is mostly about whether or not a freelancing contractor
>>>>> (defendant) has broken and NDA and anti-competition clauses he signed
>>>>> with the plaintiff.
>>>>>
>>>>> I don't understand all the details as I have only some of the
>>>>> documents, but for whatever reasons a "duly authorized marketing and
>>>>> sales executive" of the company ceritifed under oath that "open-source
>>>>> software like "Linux" have no copyright restrictions, which in effect
>>>>> puts no restrictions on their user or distribution".  And furthermore,
>>>>> "any work derived from the open source software [...] becomes the
>>>>>  ownership of the applicant"
>>>>>
>>>>> I don't really see how this is cloesly related to the heart of the
>>>>> case,
>>>>> but I still think it's devastating to see such an argument be made in
>>>>> front of the highest court of any (albeit small) country.
>>>>>
>>>>> I'm not sure what can be done by the outside world (e.g. us) to help
>>>>> the
>>>>> court understand that Linux as well as Asterisk are very well
>>>>> copyrighted works, and that at least Linux is only available under
>>>>> GPLv2, which has a number of conditions on its distribution.
>>>>>
>>>>> If anyone is interested in this, I have some more documetns that the
>>>>> defendant has permitted me to share (not sure if he has authority to
>>>>> permit that, but well...).
>>>>>
>>>>> (and in case you wonder, Mauritius has signed the Berne convention in
>>>>>  1989).
>>>>>
>>>>> Specifically if anyone has an interest to send some kind of
>>>>> letter/amicus curiae to the court clarifying the issue, it would be
>>>>> great.  Apparently there are arguments on the lines of "you cannot just
>>>>> download the GPL text from the internet and claim it is valid" etc.
>>>>> The Judge seemed to describe himself as 'computer illiterate'.
>>>>>
>>>>> Maybe there are also some existing English legal publications that one
>>>>> could DHL/FedEx/UPS to the court ;)
>>>>>
>>>>> Regards,
>>>>>        Harald
>>>>> --
>>>>> - Harald Welte<laforge at gnumonks.org<mailto:laforge at gnumonks.org>>
>>>>> http://laforge.gnumonks.org/
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> ============================================================================
>>>>> "Privacy in residential applications is a desirable marketing option."
>>>>>                                                  (ETSI EN 300 175-7 Ch.
>>>>> A6)
>>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>>> FTF-Legal mailing list
>>>>> FTF-Legal at fsfeurope.org<mailto:FTF-Legal at fsfeurope.org>
>>>>> https://mail.fsfeurope.org/mailman/listinfo/ftf-legal
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> --
>>>>> |)|  Philip Hands [+44 (0)20 8530 9560
>>>>> <tel:%5B%2B44%20%280%2920%208530%209560>] http://www.hands.com/
>>>>> |-| HANDS.COM<http://HANDS.COM>  Ltd. http://www.uk.debian.org/
>>>>> |(|  10 Onslow Gardens, South Woodford, London  E18 1NE  ENGLAND
>>>>>
>>>>> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> --
>>>>> *Avinash Meetoo**
>>>>> **Managing-Director of Knowledge Seven*
>>>>>
>>>>> Call me on 493-9394 (Mobile) or 464-7446 (Office)
>>>>> I am on my portal<http://www.avinashmeetoo.com/>, LinkedIn
>>>>> <http://www.linkedin.com/in/avinashmeetoo>, Twitter
>>>>> <http://twitter.com/AvinashMeetoo>  and Facebook
>>>>> <http://www.facebook.com/avinashmeetoo>
>>>>> Visit Knowledge Seven<http://www.knowledge7.com/>  and our other sister
>>>>> websites<http://www.knowledge7.com/page/internet-services>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> __________________________________________________________
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>>>>> Website: http://lugm.org
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>>>>> Forum: http://lugm.org/forum/
>>>>> IRC: #linux.mu on Freenode
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> __________________________________________________________
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>>>>
>>>
>>
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>
>
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